UNexpected London Chinese Short Film Festival 2017

Unexpected Film Festival is organised in partnership with UCL CMII. It aims to open up Chinese-language short films to a wider audience in London. Admission to all the films is free. Free drinks and snacks are also provided.

SHORT FILM PROGRAMME

May 26 2017, 18:30–21:00

The five experimental shorts all challenge traditional ways of filmmaking; breaking through form and ideology and speaking to the contemporary political agenda and gender issues in China, and incorporating Chinese aesthetics.

May 27 2017, 09:30-12:30

This section focuses on the conflict between the universal phenomenon of the ageing population and traditional Chinese family values. The following shorts present the generational conversations through different ways of communicating.

May 27 2017, 13:30-15:00

Modernised communities are replacing traditional households, and higher educational institutions are replacing private homeschooling. The inevitability of overthrowing traditions/heritage in the process of urbanisation raises the question of whether it is a step towards advancing society or losing the cultural heritage. The following two shorts leave us pondering the meaning of breaking with traditions.

Dr Wagner explores the broad cultural and social links between the Global North and Global South, particularly the impacts and transmutations of neoliberal globalisation on cinemas from the United States, Britain, China, South Korea, Chile, Nigeria and South Africa. At the same time Dr Wagner has an intense interest in different national cinemas, comprising another strand of his research output.

May 27, 2017, 15:30-18:00

Are those in power always suppressing others? Are those fighting for rights always right? These two shorts break the conventional wisdom of power and rights by providing new perspectives to think about conscience and morality on the journey of gaining power.

Screenings: Spring in South City (dir. Ling Xi); The Park (dir. Zheng Zhiming)

Special Guest: Dr. Xiaoning Lu

Dr. Lu is one of the leading Chinese cinema researchers based in SOAS. Her research focuses on the relationship among the aesthetic, the affective, and the political in the making of modern identities.